For designers, brands and companies: it’s a platform where they can share or sell their incredible 3D print designs with the world.

In short: Pinshape is bringing 3D printing to the people. Sound good? Read on to learn more about Pinshape’s vision for the future of consumer-friendly 3D pritning, and be sure to request access to the Business Plan tab of this profile for a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re making it happen.

Customization and personalization are the future of consumer products, and 3D printing is going to make it happen. Projections indicate that over 2.3 million 3D printers will be sold by 2018. Soon, 3D printers will be as commonplace as inkjet printers are today, and people everywhere are 3D printing everything from tools to tableware from the convenience of their own homes.

There have been some early attempts at creating online marketplaces for 3D designs, but those early efforts leave a lot to be desired when it comes to usability and reliability, and protecting designers’ rights in a way that makes it safe for them to share their amazing designs in the first place.

Enter Pinshape. We’re building the world’s best, largest library of 3D printed designs, and the world’s largest community of makers, builders and designers.

And in the process, we’re helping to shape what consumer-facing 3D printing will look like for years to come.

What Amazon did for ebooks… What Spotify did for music… What Netflix did for video…

Pinshape is here do for 3D printed designs.

The user experience is broken. We’re fixing it.

There is a lot of pain in the market today for consumers, and we’re making it easier than ever before to find and successfully print models. Pinshape isn’t just for professional engineers and makers, we’re building an experience for the next generation of 3D printer owner.

Explore only high quality models from our experienced designer community

Have a 3D printer and need high quality files to print? Pinshape offers an exceptional selection of printer-ready designs from the world’s best designers.

Have 3D design skills and looking for an opportunity to share your designs with the world? Pinshape is the ultimate marketplace to securely share your work.

From quirky home furnishings to futuristic toys, if it can be designed, downloaded and brought to life on a 3D printer, you can find it on Pinshape.

With any type of digital media—whether it’s text, music, video or something else—users flock to the platforms that make experiencing that media as simple and intuitive as possible. That’s how the iTunes store rose to dominance in music back in the early 2000s, and how Netflix reinvented video.

With Pinshape, we’re bringing that emphasis on simplicity and user-friendliness to the newest form of digital media: 3D designs.

Here’s a quick look at how Pinshape makes finding and printing 3D designs as simple as the click of a button:

1. Browse thousands of high quality 3D designs

2. Download and STL file or Stream directly to your 3D Printer

3. Set the print settings you want

4. Print

Best of all, Pinshape is 100% hardware agnostic, meaning that you don’t have to have a specific brand or model of 3D printer to print designs from Pinshape.

We’ve looked at how Pinshape is reimagining 3D printing for consumers — now let’s look at the other side of the equation, and how Pinshape is making it easier and safer for designers to share their designers.

There isn’t anything like Pinshape for professional 3D printing artists. It’s the perfect time

Imagine you’re a designer, whether you work at a big consumer products brand, or you’re an indie designer who enjoys tinkering with 3D design in your free time. You have a design for a great product, and you’d like to publish your design so that other people can use it. How do you do that without losing your ability to receive recognition—and compensation for your work?

Pinshape offers a solution that makes it easy for designers to either share/sell their source files, or protect their valuable IP through secure streaming technology.

On Pinshape, designers have the option of making their designs available for free download for or via streaming for a fee.

Streaming allows designers to ability to share/sell directly to customers on a pay-per-print basis. The source file is sliced and encrypted in the cloud and streamed directly to 3D Printers. This lets designers share their designs without giving away access to their design source file, so they have more control over their intellectual property. And when designers feel in control of their IP, they can feel good about giving makers access to their great designs!

2015 has been a big year for Pinshape, and there are even bigger and better things on the horizon! Now that our core platform is fully developed, we’re raising our round to focus on GROWTH, MARKETING & BD.

We’ve already built a track record of delivering significant value – Our Community LOVE US! We’re seeing an average of 147% month-over-month growth transactional growth (free & paid) and 15%+ monthly user growth since our public launch in January 2015.

Bringing Technology to Market

We integrated with 3DPrinterOS, the first operating system for 3D printers, in May 2015. This is how we’re able to stream designs and become the only 3D printing community to protect designer’s IP. We are the only marketplace leveraging 3DPrinterOS’s streaming technology which allows us to slice, encrypt, and stream 3D models directly to home or office printers without sharing the source file.

Since our public launch in January 2015, Pinshape has established itself as a leading marketplace and community in the 3D Printing Industry. This year, Pinshape was the invited to Capital Hill in Washington to present at CES on the Hill, and invited to speak at CES Asia in Shanghai. We continue to build the most respected 3D printing platform and go to great measures to ensure everything on our website is high quality. We’ve approved over 5,000 high quality print ready products, and will continue to ensure only the best models are showcased on Pinshape.

We’ve raised over $700,000 from a group of experienced marketplace investors including 500 Startups (Batch 9), China Rock Ventures, BDC Capital, DeNA, and angel investors who helped get us to where we are today.

The tech community is already buzzing about Pinshape and the revolutionary potential of our platform:

Tech.co: Pinshape’s partnership with 3DPrinterOS will “bring unprecedented compatibility to the 3D printing community and simplify the click-to-print experience for consumers.” The partnership is a “step forward for designers, who are now able to finally unleash their work to the world in a secure and compatible way across multiple platforms.”

3DPrintingIndustry.com: “As companies like Pinshape begin collaborating more regularly with name brands, the idea of 3D printable IP control becomes even more important for such big companies.”

Up next: Continue to grow. Our goal is to acquire at least 10,000 top talent designers, reach at least 200,000 transactions, and expand our printing partnerships to offer even more unique features. For more information about the future of Pinshape and how you can be a part of it, please request access to the business plan page of this profile!

Leadership

Lucas Matheson CEO & Co-Founder, MBA, CFA Lucas has been an entrepreneur since he was 13 and has developed a solid foundation in business and finance. He spent 10 years in finance focused on mergers and acquisitions in North America’s technology and energy markets. He also worked at Deloitte in their Financial Advisory Practice supporting transactions, due diligence, and restructuring. While there, he helped, sold, and restructured dozens of companies. Lucas earned his undergraduate degree in finance from Concordia University in Montreal, his master of business administration degree from the University of Alberta, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. His role at Pinshape involves strategy, partnerships, HR, and fundraising.

Nick Schwinghamer COO & Co-Founder, MBA, MEng By age 24 Nick had obtained 3 University degrees and the position of country R&D Manager for a wireless audio company, leading a team of Engineers and support staff both older and younger than him. Nick has helped develop world class proprietary wireless audio products used by brands such as LG, Samsung, Polk, and Harmon Kardon. He has a deep understanding of lean practice and growth which is why he’s perfectly suited to manage our data, growth, product strategy, and operations.

Andre Yanes CTO & Co-Founder, and Tech Developer Andre started 3 companies in high school, outsourcing development overseas. He is a passionate coder and hacker, has extensive experience building technology companies, and manages Pinshape’s core development and dev team.